To uphold the dignity of human life

I’ve been reading the bishop of Phoenix again. (I have my reasons. I’m doing a talk at CFI Vancouver in a couple of weeks, and I intend to draw on the bish.) I’ve been doing a close reading, as one might with a poem or a PR release. I noticed some things. Here’s one of them.

The decisions regarding life and death, morality and immorality as they relate to medical ethics are at the forefront of the Church’s mission today. As a result, the Church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility to remain actively engaged in these discussions and debates.

Look at what he’s saying there. He’s saying that decisions regarding life and death are at the forefront of the church’s mission, meaning, decisions that women should die are at the forefront of the church’s mission. He’s saying it’s a central and urgent matter that the church should see to it that women who could be saved should instead be made to die. He’s saying that the church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility to remain actively engaged in medical matters so that women who could be medically rescued will not be medically rescued. He’s saying his outfit and its hired guns have a moral responsibility to interfere with hospitals and doctors in order to force them to let women die when they could be rescued. He’s saying that decisions about life and death are his business and that he gets to decide them against pregnant women.

He never says that in so many words, of course, but that is exactly what he’s saying.

I have attempted to do my part in calling CHW and your hospitals to uphold the dignity of human life, and to embrace the fullness of what the Catholic Church teaches on the immorality of those actions that are an affront to the gift of human life and its inherent goodness from God.

He has done that by trying hard to coerce CHW and its hospitals to promise in writing to let all women die if an abortion is the only way to save them, even if the fetus can’t survive anyway. He calls that “calling hospitals to uphold the dignity of human life.” He calls refusing to save a woman’s life “upholding the dignity of human life.”

He pushes very hard on the noble-sounding bullshit about moral responsibility and the dignity of human life, in aid of a concerted effort to force hospitals to stop saving women’s lives.

I happen to disagree with Udo Shuklenk on dignity. I think it is obvious that the church misuses the term. If you look at the history of the term in Christian theology, it was not until John Paul II that human dignity came to be used solely with respect to the existence of biological human life. Until then, throughout the tradition, the idea of dignity has been used to refer to things like rational, the capacity for moral choice, self-regard and positive self-concept, etc. Speaking about these characteristics is not just wooly uplift, but indicate important aspects of positive self-regard. That is one reason why so many people refer to dignity in dying, and insist that they do not want to die in the kinds of misery which certain kinds of disease process will inflict upon them.

Bishop Olmstead is using the word ‘dignity’ in such a way as to subvert the whole purpose for including the term as a term of moral assessment. As I have said in a rather long post — I find it hard to write about things in a short compass — the church is using the idea of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human being to maintain control of a church membership that has shown itself, by its failure to live up to these standards — given stats for birth rate, abortion, divorce, etc. — no longer willing to accept this kind of autocratic control. I believe that the purpose of the mantra ‘life from conception until natural death’ is to keep women subordinate, and lay membeship of the church dependent. It is also using this to insinuate itself in the lives of other people, non-church members, as well, by making claims to universal moral jurisdiction. We need some way of showing that it is not acceptable for the Roman Catholic Church to continue trying to function as a world theocracy. The consequences of the morality they think is commanded by their god is cruel and without compassion, and with no real concern for the genuine dignity of persons. As you point out, Ophelia, he is really saying — he really is — that death and misery are important because human life has the kind of dignity which means that it must be left entirely in their god’s hands. Well, fuck me if their god isn’t a cruel bastard. If there really was one, I have a fine suggestion as to where the bishop could shove it!

We need some way of showing that it is not acceptable for the Roman Catholic Church to continue trying to function as a world theocracy.

The ACLU is working on it, which is how I found out about the bishop’s letter. There’s a great bit in the ACLU’s letter to the feds where they refer to the bishop’s “unlawful demands.” Quite. It would be nice if the god damn feds would respond!

I said again that the real reason is a perverse one, because their mumbo-jumbo is tortured for us, we must suffer in repeat, it’s our cursed duty, together with their unbelievable contempt for women you get this. You had not to search for other reasons, there are no other reasons. They have never had respect for live, they have always blessed the guns.

Ultimately, the reason why the words “human dignity” get such traction is that they are code words that appeal to unbridled selfishness. For most people “human dignity” really boils down to

1. Me me me me me.

2. Let’s not get on any slippery slopes that might come back to haunt me me me me me.

“Human dignity” is just a front for a garbled mental rant along the lines of “I’m special and I can do whatever pleases me including torturing and brutally murdering animals just to satisfy my whims of fashion but don’t you ever say I’m an animal too I’m not I’m special God gave me a soul so you can’t touch me shut up I don’t want to hear about evolution.”

This is the reason for the emotional appeal of an elaborate theological edifice that can be used to guarantee that somewhere down the road when I’m old and weak no one will pull the plug on me, as well as guaranteeing that no one can go back in time and pull the plug on me when I’m in my mother’s womb. The logical fallacies can slip by unnoticed as long as there’s that strong emotional appeal.

But I can’t figure out why some women come out strongly in defense of Bishop Olmsted over this matter, given that this is basically a death sentence for them should they ever find themselves pregnant and in need of medical attention. Maybe the ones doing the defending are mostly past child-bearing age. Or maybe they really do believe this whole package of nonsense, even when it is diametrically opposed to their own self-interest.

C’mon, Eric, you really need to provide the link. When people describe writing as insightful, this is exactly what they mean. I hope you’ll indulge a full paragraph excerpt.

Once upon a time, in a world long ago, the church controlled practically every nook and cranny of life, but it is not like that any more. So it must choose its ground very carefully, astutely, knowing that, every time it fails to control the agenda, it loses more power. There must be some small area left where its control can be absolute, and its decisions unquestioned. It must be something around which zealots can organise, but it must not put at risk the central doctrines of the church. It must marginalise the claims that women are increasingly making to be recognised, but it must give those women something important to do, a crucial ministry, different from the ministry to which men alone are called. And then it must protect that ministry with credible threats of excommunication. It must be something else. It must be something easily ordered around the stark choices between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, Life and Death.

Thank you for emphasizing the passages. I thought the meaning was clear and obvious but I was surprised how many people missed what the church actually stands for in the midst of details about the particular case.

immorality of those actions that are an affront to the gift of human life and its inherent goodness from God.

Assertions assertions assertions. Human life is a contingent fact, not a gift; it is not inherently good, whatever that could mean; it is highly unlikely this ‘God’ exists; ‘immorality’ is therefore vague and contentious, at the very least. Don’t the smug assumptions the religious make in the words they string together make one mad?

Ken, ha, I very nearly told Eric not to be shy about providing the links (but then went looking for more ACLU stuff instead). Quite right, Eric: do provide the links. We can get to the blog via your name, but you need to link us the the exact post.

Hamilton Jacobi, I don’t think what you’re saying is accurate. Here ‘dignity’ is being used as an excuse for why women can’t follow their own rational self-interest. It’s being used to shut off appropriate ‘selfishness,’ if anything, rather than to promote selfishness. I suppose you could say that the bishop is being selfish. But I don’t think he is. I think he’s being hateful, but I can’t see how he personally gains (other than having his hate stoked) by women’s deaths.

Also, I don’t think ‘dignity’ is a term for ‘unbridled selfishness’ any more than ‘life’ or ‘rights’ or ‘God’s will.’ All of these are terms the Church uses to support its backward fetus-worshipping agenda. Most of them (with the exception of God’s will) are also terms used by Church’s opponents. I think Eric is right, and any powerful term is going to be co-opted and perverted by the dishonest. Dignity, life, rights, compassion, peace, freedom of conscience, bigotry…religious extremists use all of these terms to mean precisely the opposite of what most people intuitively connect with them. Most people don’t think of human DNA when they think of ‘life.’ But the church exploits people’s emotional attachment to ‘life’, and calls itself ‘pro-life’, and talks of championing life, even though their agenda is to suppress what is actually valuable. Religion is ‘compassionate,’ we are told, and it’s supposedly the church’s ‘compassion’ that leads them to push for women’s deaths. I’m still not sure how they say these things with a straight face.

The maddening thing is, this bishop would just be a weird throwback if it weren’t for the Church’s power in the healthcare system.

Jenavir, I am pretty much in agreement with the gist of what you and Eric have said. I was just trying to dig a bit beneath the surface and look at the question of why people are willing to accept such arguments, and why an appeal to “human dignity” has such resonance with many people. I think people are very pleased with an argument grounded in the fundamental premise that “I’m special, I’m not just another ape, I was made by God in God’s image, so you’d better not mess with me.” It strokes their egos and gets them a lot of things that they want, and if the cost is throwing a few pregnant women under the bus now and then, well, they were probably sinners anyway.

Eric @4: Whatever its antecedents, “dignity” is now in ecclesiastical mouths (well: Catholic, anyway — I bet the United Church has a different take on it) is a slogan hiding an agenda of domination. Udo seems to think the term is lost beyond redemption. Personally, I’m not averse to attempting to recover it.

It’s ironic that 30 years ago, when I was hanging out with evangelicals (and evangelical-friendly Catholics), the word “dignity” actually had negative connotations. We were told that it was indicative of creeping “secular humanism”, as the western world was moving the centre of concern from God to ‘man’. Worrying too much about one’s own personal dignity signified a defect of proper Christian humility. Now it looks like the Catholic church has redefined the concept – it’s now something that is bestowed by (and therefore owned by) God, and so the bishops get to tell us (defining the permitted and proscribed actions on God’s behalf) how we need to preserve and support this God-given dignity.

But the church exploits people’s emotional attachment to ‘life’, and calls itself ‘pro-life’, and talks of championing life, even though their agenda is to suppress what is actually valuable.

Right, which is exactly why it’s so crucial to point out firmly and loudly and repeatedly what the bishop is actually doing. He’s not championing life; he’s demanding more death. He’s furious that that Phoenix woman is not dead. He’s furious that CHW won’t promise to see to it that future women in her situation will be dead. In cases of this kind he’s not even championing fetal life at the expense of maternal life, he’s simply championing maternal death. Every word he utters on this subject is in aid of more death and nothing else.

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